Acupuncture and Herbal treatment for Long Covid
Symptoms
There are lots of symptoms you can have after a Covid-19 infection.
Common long Covid symptoms include extreme tiredness (fatigue), shortness of breath, chest pain or tightness, problems with memory and concentration ("brain fog"), difficulty sleeping (insomnia), heart palpitations, dizziness, pins and needles, joint pain, depression and anxiety, tinnitus, earaches, feeling sick, diarrhoea, stomach aches, loss of appetite, a high temperature, cough, headaches, sore throat, and changes to sense of smell or taste.
Acupuncture
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, we practitioners don’t just treat symptoms but use our differential diagnoses including tongue, abdominal and pulse diagnosis and assessment of the meridians to tailor an individual treatment to support the body to bring itself back to health. Many of these Covid symptoms relate to the Lung meridian, as this is predominantly a respiratory related virus. However, other symptoms such as muscle aches and in particular brain fog, nausea etc relate more to the Spleen & Stomach meridians and can be indications of lingering pathogens in the body such as dampness. In one case, soon after treatment, the patient experienced enormous amounts of mucus coming out for the first time, leading to a massive clear out and easing of all her symptoms for the first time in months.
Herbal Medicine
There are numerous media stories which state how long COVID is being treated in mainland China with Chinese herbal medicines, which has proven to be very successful. Traditional Chinese medicine has been used in 85-90% of COVID-19 cases. This can be seen in the low death rate and virus infected rate when compared to other countries that don't use Chinese herbal medicine, such as Italy. Acupuncture treatment using points such as Taiyuan (LU9) and Yangxi (LI5) have been used on patients in China with COVID-19.
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During Italy's Covid outbreak, China donated medical supplies including 100,000 boxes of the herbal formula Lian Hua Qing Wen.
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The Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) treatment strategy used to treat Covid with Chinese medicine is similar to that which was used to treat the SARS outbreak. Herbs that boost the person's defensive wei qi (immune system) are combined with other herbs that are used to treat respiratory disorders (such as ma huang) have proved effective in treating Covid patients in Hubei province. There are several Chinese medical formulas that have been used by the Hubei Province Integrated Chinese\Western Medicine Hospital in China.
